Finish What You Started
by thequeenwillruletheboard
Summary: Roy looked over the tattoo on her back, already well-acquainted with the details of the intricate design. He had to decide what was most important to erase, how to do the most good in the least amount of damage. But how could he? How much would he have to take to make this work? Would he burn too much, too little?
**AN:** I finally hopped onto the Royai train. I am in hell. Written for all my friends who love Royai. I hope you're still my friend once you've read it.

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Roy couldn't tear his eyes away from the solitary gas lamp that hung on the stone wall. He watched the flame flicker, the one he'd lit by using alchemy, and his heart raced as he imagined it growing and licking at her skin, which bubbled and bled, and god the smell – he'd grown used to that smell in Ishval, when he'd committed murder, when he'd disposed of the bodies… The haunting individual to him.

He'd descended into the basement ahead of her. She'd been preparing herself upstairs, and he didn't know how to tell her he didn't really know how to heal large-scale burns; his victims were never left alive long enough. Cowardice governed his decision, and fully aware of this, he clenched his right hand around the ignition glove covering it.

Wearing it paired with civilian clothing felt absolutely foreign, but this act was something he refused to do in uniform. The crimes he'd committed had all been done while wearing that uniform – he'd ruined and ended too many lives while wearing it – but somehow, it gave him deniability. He could blame it on his orders, the military, the authority machine. Sometimes he did, when the ghosts left him lying awake.

However, in this, he was unquestionably complicit, and he would acknowledge that fact for the rest of their lives. She deserved that much.

He heard footsteps descending on the stairs behind him. _How long have I been down here?_ Grimacing, he steeled his resolve. _I'll never be ready… but if she thinks she is, then that's what matters. I don't have the right to back out._

"Lieu- Um, Roy?" she called. Hearing her reluctance, he was unsurprised to turn around and find her stopped halfway down the stairs, and he fought the instinct in his gut to envelop her in his arms and tell her that he'd changed his mind, that no matter how she asked he couldn't cause her any more pain. _Coward,_ he thought. _You've done enough damage already. Finish what you started, asshole._

"Are you ready?" he asked, averting his gaze before he could help himself.

"Yes," she said, not moving from her position on the stairs.

He sighed and stood up from the desk he'd been sitting on, approaching her and offering his hand to help her down the stairs. She looked down at it, and he looked up at it, realizing he had offered the hand wearing the ignition glove. Quickly as he could, he rescinded it and used the other arm to gesture her down the stairs. She nodded and proceeded down the stairs, the wood creaking under each of her footsteps.

She approached the far side of the room, resting her hand lightly on the wall. He remained standing next to the stairs, watching her out of the corner of his eye. Slowly, she pulled the tie loose on her robe, slipping it down her shoulders and off her arms. He watched as she draped it over a chair, and then looked back at him. "Sir?"

Hearing the honorific was impetus enough. "Don't. Not tonight. I don't deserve it."

Her face contorted in the small way she'd grown accustomed to, where an overflow of emotion showed in a slight furrow of her eyebrows and purse of her lips. Roy learned to read it; he could see the young woman behind the soldier – _the one who trusted me_ – and the reminder of what they'd done _– what I turned her into_ – turned his stomach into knots.

"Please, Riza…" he whispered, dropping his eyes to the floor. Her life, her body, and her mind were at the mercy of his ruinous fingertips, and she asked the worst from him. _She single-handedly delivered my punishment. My atonement._

Holding her arms across her bare chest, she nodded in concession. "Okay." Turning back to the wall, she uncrossed her arms and braced herself against the cold stone, taking a breath and squeezing her eyes shut.

Roy looked over the tattoo on her back, already well-acquainted with the details of the intricate design. He had to decide what was most important to erase, how to do the most good in the least amount of damage. But how could he? How much would he have to take to make this work? Would he burn too much, too little? _How am I supposed to do this?_

Moments later, he still had yet to decide, so she slammed her fists against the wall and glared over her shoulder. "Do it, Roy. Before I find a way to do it myself."

"No! I mean, I'll do it. Turn around and brace yourself." He took a breath and held up his hand, the middle finger and thumb pressed together. _Please God, let my pinpoint aiming work…_ He hadn't needed to worry about pinpoint in Ishval. He'd just burned everything. _Here goes._

The movement of the flame from his fingers to her back resembled the crack of a whip, from the sound to the way it ripped through the flesh on her back. The only sound she made was a grunt of discomfort, and when the flame died down she took a deep breath and relaxed against the wall.

He lifted his innocent hand to his mouth, then ran it through his hair. "I… I have to do it again. It's not enough." He'd been so conservative in his efforts to keep her safe that he had barely changed the tattoo. The smell had already permeated the room, metallic and meaty, and he watched her stiffen as she realized the consequences of his words.

"I'm ready," she said, tensing around any outward signs of pain and forcing them behind the confines of her skin.

He lifted his gloved hand once again, lifting his eyes to her back, and murmured, "I'm sorry."

 _Crack._ Her gasp and cry escaped past her lips this time, and when they reached his ears he flinched and closed his eyes. _Please. I don't want to do it again. I can't do it again._

"Roy?" she asked, her breathing audible and shaky.

He opened his eyes again, and clenched his jaw, seeing the damage he'd already done: the skin he'd hit had blistered horribly, and he could see he'd destroyed layers of her skin, and blood dripped generously down her bare flesh. But as before, the image could still be deciphered. He clenched his fists and shoved his fingers in his hair, unable to breathe. Spinning on his heel, he kicked the desk behind him. "Fuck! Goddamn it!"

Riza leaned her right side against the wall, unmistakable tears in her eyes. "You have to do it again."

He nodded, taking a breath to recompose himself. "Yes." He met her eye, and solidified his resolve. "Hold on tight. It's going to be a big one. But it's going to be the last one."

Clenching her jaw, she gave a single nod. "Okay." She resumed her previous position, both arms propping her up, facing away from him.

"On three," he growled, more to force himself into action than to ready her. At her affirmation, he pressed his fingers together. "One… two… thr–" he cut himself off and added the force of his resentment behind this transmutation, determined to end this act of hell immediately.

Before he could drop his arm, Riza's unstoppable and unwilling scream of agony had reverberated around the room, and she dropped to the floor, her limp body twitching with wide eyes and short breaths.

"Hawkeye!" he yelled, launching himself to his knees by her side. She had fallen on her stomach, arms trapped at odd angles beneath her body, and her legs halfway curled under her torso. In this position, and in such close proximity, he could see exactly what degree of damage he'd done to her skin. The large burn had reached the fatty tissue, and the edges of the bloody patches were left charred. Gently as he could, he touched her shoulder. She flinched violently and cried out, shuddering and rolling onto her side, away from him.

A twinge flared under his ribcage as he frantically tried to remember what to do for her, or even how to breathe. How could he even get her out of the basement without hurting her or aggravating her state of shock? He didn't even have any water downstairs with them to soothe her skin, to ensure against infection. _Oh God,_ he thought, frozen in horror. _What have I done? I've killed her._

The alchemist in his brain looked around the room frantically; what could he transmute in order to save her?! _Think, dammit, think!_ All of his training, his certification, his experience, and he's useless. There's nothing to make water, God how much he wished he could transmute skin – how do you care for skin? _Bandages, dumbass._

Why in hell did they leave the bandages _upstairs?_ "Riza, I'm coming back. I promise I'm coming back." Without hesitation, he turned and ran up the rickety wooden stairs as fast as possible, all the while his mind replaying Master Hawkeye's last words over and over: _Look after her…_ He reached the bathroom at the top of the stairs and ripped open the cabinets, rummaging through them at breakneck speed for anything that might be able to help her: gauze, ointment, towels. He needed to find water.

Hurrying back into the kitchen, he found a suitable bowl and filled it with water, balancing everything as carefully as he could while making his way back into the basement. "Okay, Hawkeye. We can do this. You're going to be okay, dammit."

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he finally looked at her again and dropped everything in his hands, the spilled water sloshing at his feet. Exclaiming her name so loud he could not even hear it, he rushed to her side. She laid on her back and here eyes were cracked open – a sign of death he was all-too familiar with. "No no no no no no no no…" Roy pressed his fingers up under her mandible, praying to every god he'd never believed in that she was alive.

A weak but present pulse fluttered beneath his fingertips, and a panicked laugh bubbled up from his throat. "Okay. I told you, Hawkeye. We can do this."

He looked back at the mess he'd made out of the water and everything else and groaned. "I am on a damn roll today, aren't I?"

He sighed and groped in his pocket for a spare stick of chalk. _Sure, that I have on hand. Alchemists_ are _useless idiots._ With no care for detail, he drew a rough circle around the puddle and drew the moisture out of the ground and medical linens, depositing it into the bowl he had carried it in before he tripped over himself.

With caution this time, he approached her and gingerly dipped a towel in the water and wiped away the blood. At the moment of contact to her skin, her body jolted, but she remained unconscious. Roy did the best he could, cleaning her wound and dressing it, wrapping her in bandages to secure the gauze and ointment in place. _I just have to get her into town. I can pay for the doctors to help her there._

Holding up Riza's limp form, Roy checked his handiwork, ensuring that he had completely bandaged the wound, then grabbed her robe of the chair beside them, gently pulling her arms through the sleeves and tying it snugly around her waist. He leaned her against the wall sitting up and turned his back to her, pulling her arms around his neck and leaning forward so she wouldn't slip away, especially considering her potentially fatal state. Slipping his hands beneath her thighs, he hoisted her up and carried her up the stairs.

On the way out of the house, he pulled his silver state issue watch from his coat pocket. The irony of needing the symbol of their mutual destruction to provide payment for her treatment struck him and he began to laugh in spite of himself. "How do you like that, Hawkeye?" he asked aloud, knowing full well she could not and would not answer, but acting as though she were still intact fueled him forward.

The long trek through the hills into town proved more difficult than he'd thought. He'd stepped out of the front door into a torrent of pissing rain, and fought to keep his footing through the sinking mud and slick grass. _Gotta love whatever entity made sure I'd be too wet to transmute flames after tonight. Maybe it'll never stop raining… What difference does it make adding useless to hopeless?_

Finally, he could see the doctor's clinic ahead and he started laughing again, halfway because he'd managed to get this far, and halfway out of his own delirium. He gripped Riza's legs tighter as he overcame the last few meters between him and the front door. Kicking it lightly in place of knocking, he yelled, "Hello? I could really use some help here!"

A middle aged man with greying hair opened the door a minute or two later, and Roy recognized him as the same Doctor Harris that he'd seen while he'd lived here. "Oh, aren't you that boy Berthold apprenticed a few years ago? he said after a moment. "What's going on?"

Roy turned around to show the man Riza's unconscious form. "It's Master Hawkeye's daughter. She's been very severely burned, and she needs treatment. I can pay whatever you need. I'm a State Alchemist; I have the money."

Harris gestured him inside, "Of course, of course, come in."

Roy nodded eagerly, crossing the threshold and laying Riza on her stomach on one of the available examination tables, turning her head to the side so she could breathe.

"I need to disrobe her to see the wound," the doctor said.

"I'll help." He lifted her up slightly, avoiding touching the raw flesh, while the doctor slipped her robe off her shoulders. He wondered how the jostling hadn't woken her, but then the body marveled him in its methods of resilience – _God, let this be resilience and not failure._ After they'd set her robe aside, he informed the doctor, "The burn is on a large portion of her back. It'd be easiest to cut the bandage along the side of her torso, I think."

"You did this?" the doctor asked quietly.

His heart skipped a beat, his brain frantic – _how in the hell could he have known I hurt her is it on my face is it in my skin what do I look like right now fuck calm down Mustang –_ "What?"

"You bandaged her?"

Releasing his breath, Roy nodded. "Yes, I did."

"Alright. Well, let's see what's going on underneath." He laid out his instruments, then cut away the bandages as Roy had suggested. "My God…" he murmured. "How did this happen?"

The truth flashed in his mind's eye, and he took a shallow breath before shaking it away. "I, uh… She slipped and fell backward… Into the fireplace. She spilled water on the floor, and… Um, anyway, she went into shock and then I went to get bandages and water and when I came back she was unconscious… So I wrapped her up and brought her here."

The doctor paused for a moment, openly scrutinizing him, then spoke quietly. "Her recovery will be slow and painful."

"I expected that. But she will recover?" he asked slowly, keeping his voice tempered for fear of the answer.

The doctor looked down at the damage Roy had inflicted and sighed. "We can hope. I'll do my best. There's nothing more you can do – you should go have a seat." He gestured to a seating area on the other side of the room, and Roy crossed to it as the doctor began to tend to the injury on Riza's back.

Roy sat stiffly in a chair, elbows propping his chin up on his knees for what seemed like hours. With no indication of how much time had actually passed, he shifted at last when the doctor approached him. "I've done the best I could. The wound does not seem to be infected at the moment, and I've given her something for the pain, so she'll be able to get restful sleep."

"Thank you very much," he said, allowing himself to breathe. "Will she be able to stay here during her recovery?"

"Yes, we have rooms upstairs available for long-term patients," the doctor said. "And you're paying for this treatment?"

"My research grants from the military will be able to cover it. You can send the bill to Eastern Command. I'll authorize it from there."

"You're leaving her here?" Harris asked, cocking his eyebrow at him.

"It's for the best," Roy answered, his decision resolute. He wouldn't be abandoning her; his proximity to her had never done her any good, and he refused to let it ruin her life any further. He'd made her an orphan, a murderer, and now, perhaps a corpse. Until she refused it, and eventually she would as stubborn as she was, he'd use every cent of his grant money to provide her a comfortable life, and use his position and ranking to keep her safe. He could put distance between them and accomplish that.

He stood and offered his hand to Harris. "Thank you again for everything. Be sure to take care of her for me."

The doctor took his hand and shook it firmly. "Of course."

After taking a deep breath, Roy stepped up to Riza's bedside. "She'll stay asleep?"

"Yes. She's heavily sedated."

Nodding, Roy leaned down and brushed his lips against her temple in a ghost of a kiss. "Goodbye, Riza. I'm sorry…" the words caught on the lump in his throat where the gravity of their situation had settled. "I… I'll miss you. See you in hell, sweetheart."

He stood still for a moment, memorizing the details of her face, pretending for that second she were merely sleeping, peaceful and painless. The knuckle of his index finger belonging to his offending hand grazed her cheek, and the stab to his heart at the contact of their skin prompted him to turn on his heel and walk away from her, and out of the door without looking back. _I will_ never _hurt her again._


End file.
